


Ten Years and One Too Many Days

by JB Harris (LizAna)



Series: The Janto Files [17]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Children of Earth Fix-It, Episode: Big Finish Special 8: Torchwood One: Machines, M/M, bending the canon to suit my own purposes, janto, questionable application of nano-bio-tech, yes it's another CoE fix-it, you can blame Gareth David Lloyd for this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-20 12:45:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15534540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizAna/pseuds/JB%20Harris
Summary: It's been ten years since Ianto died when Jack discovers he was part of an experimental nano-drug program before joining Torchwood One. With dormant nano tech in his blood, Jack realises that maybe there's a chance he might be able to save Ianto after all.(minor spoilers for Big Finish audio Torchwood One: Machines)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers!  
> So for those who haven't listened to the very excellent audio that is Torchwood One: Machines, the middle episode, called Blind Summit (written by Gareth David-Llyod), is all about how Ianto joined T1. During a mission (that went a little bit wrong) before he even officially joined Torchwood, Ianto was injected with a nano drug called Execllium that supposedly increased strength, IQ and healing capabilities. Yvonne then retconned Ianto so he doesn't actually remember any of that happening. Clearly, this had to be used as a very clever way to save Ianto post CoE. So that's exactly what I did.

Jack sighed as he pulled yet another file out of the dusty Torchwood One archives box, glancing at the tab and seeing _Balhoonians_. Well, he’d found B, so he figured he must be getting close. The file on Blind Summit—a bio-tech company Torchwood One had supposedly destroyed seventeen years ago—had to be in this box somewhere. They’d been experimenting with some kind of nano-drug and he currently had a dead super-soldier on the autopsy table suggesting that maybe Blind Summit hadn’t been completely destroyed after all.

He flicked through the box, ignoring the tightness he always got in his chest on the rare occasions he came down to the archives. Usually he just sent one of the team, because even thinking about walking through the dim corridors and quiet rooms made his body ache. Too many memories down here. _Ianto Jones_. There literally hadn’t been anyone else in the universe like him, never had been and never would be. It’d been ten years already since Ianto had—

He paused and took a ragged breath, blinking back the all-too-familiar sting burning his eyes. A decade that felt like mere days. The hole Ianto had left in his heart and soul hadn't yet begun to fade. The pain would stay with him for hundreds of years, he had absolutely no doubt. He’d lost too many people he’d loved over his long years, but this time had been different. Ianto hadn’t just broken his heart; he’d shattered his soul.

He hadn’t let himself admit it until it was too late, until after Ianto was already gone and he couldn’t do anything about it. Love was almost too simple a word for what he’d felt, for what Ianto had been to him. There was a part inside that hated himself for being so terrified of the pain he now felt, he’d kept Ianto at arm’s length and had never fully given him everything he deserved under some foolish notion that he might be able to protect himself from utter desolation when he inevitably lost Ianto. He’d been such an idiot.

Jack shook his head, forcing the thoughts away as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, then delved back into the box of files, finally coming across what he needed.

He took out the folder and flipped it open to see a report written by Yvonne Hartman. He skimmed through her notes about who’d been involved—one of her very own Torchwood employees had double crossed her and he got a moment’s satisfaction out of that, smirking as he imagined her indignant anger. He could almost hear it in the clipped sentences of the report. He glossed over the nano-drug, Excellium, the trial patients were given and the side effects—many simply went insane while the rest became aggressive super-soldiers. They experienced enhanced strength, increased IQ, and healing capabilities. Some had been given a kind of dormant strain to be activated at a later date. Ah, now he was getting somewhere. It was possible the body up on his autopsy table had been one of those patients and for some reasons, the nano-drug had been activated seventeen years later. He quickly flipped through the file to the list of patients. Scanning down and finding the dead man listed two-thirds of the way down the page confirmed his suspicions.

Satisfied, he was about to flip the file closed again to take it up to the hub so one of the team could cross-reference the names to track down anyone else who might be in danger of becoming a crazed super-soldier, when a name at the bottom of the list caught his eye.

 _Ianto Jones_.

He surged up from the chair, gripping the paper tight enough to crumple the edges. No. How was this possible? Ianto hadn’t even been working for Torchwood then, this document predated his personnel records by several months— Did it have something to do with how he’d ended up working for Yvonne? Ianto had never told him the story behind his recruitment, had always just said _I can hardly remember a time when I didn't work for Torchwood_. Jack had found out much later that Ianto had never been a junior researcher, he’d doctored his file when he’d come looking for a job at Torchwood Three, knowing Jack would have never taken him on if he’d known the truth—Ianto had walked right into the role of Yvonne’s PA, which said something for Ianto’s character in itself. Yvonne had trusted very few people. She was one of those keep-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer type people.

There was a notation next to Ianto’s name, so he quickly turned over the page to see Yvonne had made a cryptic comment about Ianto having a distinctly unique reaction to the nano-drug, perhaps because of multiple retcon doses before receiving Excellium, and possible future usefulness should the opportunity arise. So, what? Ianto had been some super-soldier just waiting to be activated? Had Ianto known about this? He couldn’t have. Surely he would have said something.

Jack shoved the B box aside and frantically searched for the E box, looking for the file on Excellium. Some kind of desperation was driving him, some instinct telling him this was massively important. When he finally laid hands on it, he almost ripped the paper in his haste to get the folder open. He scanned the pages, reading the breakdown of the nano-drug's components, both bio and technological, how it activated and deactivated, as well as some unexpected results of the tiny bio-mechanical robots. The more he read, the harder his heart pounded as a picture and an idea started forming in his mind, bringing a spark of warm hope he hadn’t felt since the week before the 456 aliens had arrived on Earth and started unravelling his life.

He slapped the folder closed when he was done, trying to calm his racing breath. He wasn’t really considering this, was he? It couldn’t be that simple. _He couldn’t be that lucky_. But now that he’d found out, now that he’d read it all, he knew he wouldn’t ever be able to leave it alone or forget. If he didn’t at least check—despite the gruesome image he might end up stuck with to carry him into eternity—he would spend the rest of his life regretting it and calling himself a coward. He left the paper archives and rushed into the physical archives, gathering up some tech and equipment, consulting the folders a few times to make sure he had everything he needed.

When he was done, Jack took the folders up to the hub and left them on the nearest desk. The list of names would still need to be followed up. It’d gotten late while he’d been down in the archives and everyone had gone home. But late was good. Late meant dark. What was a decent time to go digging in a graveyard?

He was cursing as he went looking for a shovel, finally finding one in the back of a random cupboard and then discovered it wouldn’t fit in the boot of the hybrid. Damn it, he really had to do something about getting them a bigger car. He chucked the shovel in the back seat, angling the handle through the front seats and then climbed in, banging his knees on the steering wheel like he always did.

For the first time he was regretting handing Ianto’s body over to his family for a traditional burial instead of secreting him away in the Torchwood morgue like protocol dictated. Of course, the hub had been a little bit exploded at the time and he’d thought Torchwood was done for once and for all. He could have sent Ianto’s body up to Archie at Torchwood Two, of course, but he’d been so devastated about it all, so desperate to escape, he’d simply wanted it all done with so he could start the impossible task of moving forward with his eternal damnation.

He broke more than a few road laws and speed limits on the way to the cemetery and almost wanted to laugh at himself. It wasn’t like Ianto was going anywhere. The urge to laugh was quickly replaced by a tightness in his throat as he forced down the need to cry. This was either going to be the best or worst thing he’d ever done in his very long life.

When he reached the graveyard, he blanked his thoughts, because there was a very definite part of his mind yelling at him not to do this. That Ianto deserved peace and eternal rest. Except if his theory on the Excellium nano-drug was right, then Ianto wasn’t technically dead and might otherwise spend his eternity in a kind of limbo. For a moment he had to wonder, though, if that wasn’t better than the constant battleground of pain that was life.

Jack drove into the cemetery and parked as close as possible to where he thought Ianto’s gave might be. He’d never been here—hadn’t been able to bring himself to attend the funeral and couldn’t come stand here and look at a cold stone in place of a life that’d burned so brightly.

Taking a flashlight, bag of equipment and shovel, he scanned the headstones slowly, walking a few rows until his gaze fell on a familiar name.

 _Ianto Jones. 1983-2009. Heroism is a matter of choice_.

A simple quote from a 20th century journalist that fit Ianto so well. He took a ragged breath, grip tightening on the handle of the shovel. Carefully, he set the bag down and balanced the flashlight on top pointing across the neat patch of grass.

Glancing around, even though it was after midnight and the cemetery was cast in deep dark shadows, he checked there was no one close by before he rammed the shovel down into the soft earth and started digging.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, wow, guys! I didn't expect everyone to be so excited over this! My eternal thanks to everyone who've left kudos and comments. This fandom is so amazing and now I only hope the rest of the story is as good as you're all expecting...

Jack wished he could say this was the first time he’d dug a grave, but it simply wouldn’t be true. Usually he was digging them to bury people, however, not dig them up. And then of course there’d been that time he’d dug his own grave and Grey had buried him under Cardiff for almost two thousand years. He’d also like to say it wasn’t the first time he’d dug his own grave… but things like that tended to happen to him. He guessed it probably wouldn’t be the last, either.

It’d taken him several hours, but he was finally through to the coffin. He paused, panting and wiping his arm over the sweat that’d been dripping down his face. He hadn’t taken a single break, hadn’t paused in the quick monotonous motion of stabbing the shovel into the dirt and flinging the earth over his shoulder, even when his muscles burned in protest.

Stepping to the edge of the hole, he tossed the shovel aside and dragged over the bag of equipment and the flashlight. The moment of truth, and he felt like he wanted to throw up. There was every chance he was about to see the decimated remains of the man he’d loved more desperately than any other person in his entire life, and spend the next few hours sobbing as he re-buried the coffin.

Of course, there was also a chance—

No, he couldn’t let himself think it. Couldn’t let the hope grow any brighter or stronger than it already had, otherwise if this all turned out horribly wrong, he knew he wouldn’t be able to take it. He’d find someway to slingshot himself into the centre of the sun and spend the rest of eternity burning, because it would surely be less painful.

With a short breath, he took a prybar out of the bag, tucked the torch under his arm and then jammed the end of the prybar into the edge of the casket lid. Moisture had somewhat warped the timber and it groaned before splintering and finally popping free. He supposed that was the thing about coffins, they weren’t meant to be opened after ten years.

He dropped the prybar and wedged his fingers around the edge, ignoring the splinters stabbing into his skin. He held his breath as he pulled the lid open, awkwardly shuffling himself out of the way in the confined space as he did.

The first thing the beam of light from the torch highlighted was the pristine suit. A sob caught him by surprise and he hung onto the lid of the coffin, fighting down the hard surge of emotion. Tone on tone, the material was a dark, gun metal grey with matching waistcoat. Jack slowly swept the flashlight up; black tie shot through with the smallest hint of silver over dark charcoal shirt. He swallowed, almost not able to look as the now-shaking beam of light hit Ianto’s face.

His gorgeous, perfect, unblemished face. Apart from the blue-tinged lips, he looked exactly the same as last time he’d seen him. Jack released an explosion of air, almost crumpling forward to break down in relief. The nano-drug had preserved him. And if he was right, it had not only preserved him, but kept him in a stasis that meant he had never actually died. It would have cleansed his body of the virus—and any other imperfections—and only needed to be activated to revive Ianto to full health. He hoped.

He reached back, tugging the bag over and grabbing out equipment with trembling hands. First, he picked up Ianto’s limp hand and pricked one of his fingers, taking a blood sample to check for the nano-drug and make sure his theory was correct—that it was dormant, not active. If he found it to be active, then Ianto in stasis might be the best he could hope for. Though he knew himself well enough to believe he’d spend eternity looking for a way to bring him out of the limbo between life and death.

Before his eyes, the small pinprick healed right up. Wow. Ianto hadn’t been able to do _that_ before. The medical scanner beeped and Jack took in the readings. They weren’t exactly what he’d been hoping for, but they were still good. The nano-drug was mostly still dormant, just some of the healing capabilities—a kind of emergency protocol he supposed—had been activated to sustain Ianto.

He took out the tech scanner he’d brought and a cable to attach the two. He needed to lock onto the unique frequency the nano-drug worked on—it was how he assumed the super-soldier in the autopsy bay had activated; he’d accidently come in contact with something that’d triggered the dormant nano within him. Or maybe not so accidentally, maybe someone had done it on purpose. But that was something to figure out another day. When he had Ianto back.

His heart skipped wildly in his chest, hardly able to believe he was here and this was really happening. So many times he’d dreamt—

He refocused his attention, connecting the two scanners together. The readings the medical scanner had taken of the nano-bio-tech in Ianto’s blood should help the tech scanner recognize the frequency.

It took a few minutes for the two devices to calibrate, and he glanced at Ianto’s face again, dark lashes resting on pale cheeks. The need to see Ianto’s beautiful blue eyes staring up at him clamped onto his entire body like a physical ache.

The scanners beeped again and he glanced down at the screen to see they’d locked on to the nano. _Yes_. Now all he needed to do was find the operating system—

A scroll of information flooded the screen and he wanted to whoop at the top of his lungs. Instead he tapped rapidly across the screen, initiating all processes. His heart tripped over itself when he was met with the message of _successful activation_ on the small screen.

He lowered the device and looked down at Ianto, hardly daring to breathe. His body convulsed once, twice, and then suddenly Ianto was gasping awake with a long draw of air, much like he did when he came back from the dead.

Jack dropped everything he was holding and lunged forward to catch Ianto’s upper body before he could sink back into the coffin.

Ianto coughed, struggling to catch his breath, before staring up at him in utter confusion. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life. Tears started streaming down his face and he didn’t even care.

“Jack?” Ianto voice was scratchy from misuse, but it still made a sob burst free from his chest. He lowered his head, crying messily into Ianto’s shoulder.

Ianto’s arms came around him, holding him tight, shushing words in Welsh and English for a few moments until he could rein in his emotions.

“Jack, where the hell are we?” Ianto finally pushed him back, brow creased. “Because it looks like a—”

“Grave?” He shuffled back and helped Ianto get unsteadily to his feet. Not that his balance was much better, it felt like his legs were made of jelly. “Sorry, we kind of buried you.”

“Buried me?” Ianto demanded, voice going up about ten octaves. Jack watched the familiar expressions cross Ianto’s face as he clearly started remembered the 456. “Jack, the children— I thought I was going to die!”

“The children are all fine. And you did die.” His breath hitched and he had to swallow down new tears threatening to rise up. None of it mattered anymore, because Ianto was alive. “Actually, technically you didn’t. We just thought you did.”

Ianto looked at the dirt walls surrounding them. “So you buried me.”

He somehow managed to sound ridiculously indignant about that. No doubt he was wondering why Torchwood protocol hadn’t been followed and his body wasn’t in the morgue at Torchwood Two. Even in death, Ianto had clearly expected procedure to be followed to the letter.

“How long?” He refocused on Jack with an intensity he’d forgotten Ianto could invoke.

“How about we get out of here and we can talk about it—”

“How. Long.” There was no room for escape in the demand.

“Ten years.” He winced, catching Ianto’s shoulders, worried about how he was going to react.

“ _Ten years?_ ” Ianto slouched back against the soil, sending a trickle of dirt down around him. “But how—why now?”

“It was a case I’m working on. This nano-drug called Excellium. Torchwood One shut down a company called Blind Summit who were testing it on people seventeen years ago. When I dug the files out of the archives and checked the patient list, your name was on there, as well as a notation about you having a unique reaction to the nano-drug no one else had.”

Ianto pushed a hand through his hair. “I don’t remember any of that.”

“I think Yvonne might have retconned you, both before and after. I think it’s one of the reasons she kept you so close all those years, she was possibly planning on activating it at some stage, if it ever proved useful.”

Ianto’s expression shifted into a glower. “I really want to hate her for that right now, but I think she just saved my life.”

He had to say, Yvonne had never been his favourite person, but if she was still alive, he probably would have kissed her feet. She’d unwittingly given him the most precious gift he’d ever received; a second chance with Ianto Jones.


	3. Chapter 3

Ianto’s mind was reeling as Jack helped him out of the grave. His grave. Jesus, he’d been dead for ten years. No wonder Jack had collapsed against him and sobbed like his heart was broken. He paused to look down at the headstone with his name and a quote about heroism on it and couldn’t help a snort of laughter.

“Who’s responsible for _that_ , you or Gwen?”

Jack briefly glanced down before bending to pick up the shovel. “Actually, it was your sister.”

“Oh.” Well, what could he say about that? Didn’t seem fair to make a joke about it any longer. God, poor Rhi. They hadn’t been close, but they’d only had each other since their mam had died. He wondered how she’d coped. Bloody hell, Mica and David would be teenagers by now. It felt like just yesterday he’d slumped on the floor of Thames House, trying to desperately drag air into his lungs as he felt the scalding dampness of Jack’s tears falling on him. Yet an entire decade had passed.

He glanced up to find Jack was steadily shovelling dirt back into his grave. Right, probably wasn’t the thing to do, leaving an empty grave dug open in the middle of a cemetery.

“I could give you a hand. Got another shovel?”

Jack tossed him a grin. “Actually, I didn’t think that far ahead. It’s fine. You should probably take it easy anyway.”

He nodded and shifted over to perch on the edge of the headstone, watching Jack’s coat swing back and forth as he worked.

“So, 2019, huh? What’s that like?” He hoped things hadn’t changed so much that he’d be totally lost and feel displaced… Though Jack had experienced that multiple times and seemed to have adjusted fine.  

Jack shrugged. “More world problems, more techno gadgets, more people. Not too different.”

“That’s… good?” He wasn’t sure what it was, actually.

Jack gave a short laugh. “It’s something, anyway.”

“And Torchwood?” He almost didn’t want to know. Was Gwen still alive? Had she and Jack just gone on without him like they had after Tosh and Owen? For some reason, the thought made him even more unsettled than the idea that ten years had gone by while he’d been supposedly dead.

“There wasn’t a Torchwood, for a while. Six months after you—” Jack’s voice caught and he paused before continuing. “Six months after, I actually thought I’d managed to close the rift for good. I left the planet for a while, but then I came back when I heard Earth was in trouble again. I tracked down Gwen and we ended up in America for a bit. When we fixed that problem, the rift reopened and Gwen decided it was time Torchwood rose from the ashes.”

Jack stopped shovelling to look over at him, shadows across his face, but Ianto could still see the pain in his eyes. “Truthfully, my heart wasn’t in it anymore, but what else was I going to do?”

Jack returned his attention to the mound of dirt and shrugged, as if none of it really mattered, when Ianto knew it did. “Eventually we ended up with a new team and believe it or not, Yvonne Hartman turned up again—from an alternate reality. Gwen decided she was finally ready to have a life with Rhys and her daughter, and actually quit on me. Then this case with the Excellium landed in our laps and here we are.”

“So, not much happened, then,” he returned in a dry voice. 

Jack laughed and suddenly dropped the shovel. “You know what, screw this. I don’t care what they think of an empty grave in the morning!”

Ianto abruptly found himself plastered up against Jack, his arms tight around him and their mouths sealed firmly together. Even though it didn’t seem like that long since he’d last seen Jack, it suddenly _felt_ like it, and the kiss was nothing but desperate longing with echoes of fading sadness. God, had Jack always tasted this good, felt this good, made his entire body burn with the most pleasurable, soul-completing, heart-melting heat?

“Ianto,” Jack whispered against his lips. He was crying again, the tears streaking down his face and slipping between their lips until Ianto could taste his relief and every second of heartbreak Jack had endured in the past ten years.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, even though it hadn’t been his fault and there was nothing he could have done save not walking into Thames House that day. “Jack, I’m so, so sorry.”

Jack pulled back to look at him. “It doesn’t matter now because I got you back. I can’t believe that for once, the universe did something right, gave me something back instead of ripping everything away over and over.”

“But what does it mean, exactly?” He tightened his hold on Jack, suddenly worried this was only going to make things worse. One day he would die again—for good this time—and then what would Jack do? Maybe he would have been better off staying dead and buried, as terrifying as that thought was.

“Honestly, I don’t know.” Jack’s gaze roamed over his face, as if looking for the answers. But there was a shadow of concern in his eyes. “From what I understand, though, with the healing capabilities, increased strength and IQ, the nano-bio-tech in your blood could sustain you for a very long time.”

“A very long time as in—”

“Hundreds, maybe thousands of years.”

He sucked in a startled breath. Even though he’d guessed that’s what Jack meant, hearing the words made reality slam home. “I’d be _immortal_?”

“Like me,” Jack replied with a nod, tone suggesting it was possibly the worst fate anyone could endure. “But I don’t know that for sure. You might age and live a normal life span and die like a normal human.”

“How do we figure it out?” The words didn’t come out at much more than a whisper. He couldn’t decide which he feared more; having eons stretching ahead of him in time, or living a not-so-normal life with Jack where the man he loved had to watch him grow old and eventually fade away.

“I don’t know that either, I’m sorry,” Jack said with a shake of his head. “Time will tell, I suppose.”

“If I am—” He swallowed, forcing his mind to bend around the impossible concept. “If I am immortal then you and I—”

A slight smile slipped over Jack’s lips. “Then there’s going to be a _you and I_ for a long, long time. If you’ll have me.”

His heart raced, making him light headed. As far as he remembered, last week Jack had been getting snarky at him about calling themselves a couple, now he was proposing _forever_?

“I don’t know,” he managed to reply, and Jack’s expression fell just a little. He felt bad, but he worked hard not to smile. “You are a terrible flirt. And you hog all the bed covers—”

“I do not! You sleep in the middle of the bed.” Jack crossed his arms and pouted at him.

“And sometimes you shag me until I can’t walk.”

Jack arched an eyebrow at him. “That’s a bad thing?”

He finally let the grin free as he shifted in closer to Jack again, pressing their bodies together. “I don’t know. It’s been ten years, I think I’ve forgotten.”

“Well, Jones, Ianto Jones, consider it my duty to remind you.” Jack leaned in and kissed him again, this time slowly and thoroughly, like they had all the time in the world. Who knew, if Jack’s theory about the nano-drug turned out to be correct, they just might.

Jack broke the kiss on an uneven breath and Ianto pulled back to stare at him, pulse skipping at the way Jack was looking at him, until he leaned in and brushed his lips up Ianto’s neck to his ear.

“Ianto, I love you.” The words feathered lightly over his skin, leaving him shuddering.

Oh God, Jack had never said it properly before. For a second he was angry that it’d taken him bloody dying and miraculously resurrecting for Jack to finally say it, but he’d known. All along he’d known, in every touch and every look. Even if his courage had failed him in the end and he’d been terrified that Jack would forget him, he’d believed with every atom of his being that Jack loved him. The words simply settled in a place that he’d already held.

“I love you too, Jack.” He reached up and cupped Jack’s face, finding his everything in Jack’s returning gaze. “Always have and always will. Forever.”

“Forever,” Jack repeated, a hint of awe in his eyes.

It was a vow and a promise. Because forever was all they had.


	4. Chapter 4

**52 years later – 2071**

A tepid summer wind was snatching the words away, leaving Ianto wishing he could get a little closer to hear what was being said. Dark clouds were blowing up beyond the headstones and the old stone church in the distance; it was sunny now, but the weather wasn’t likely to hold for the rest of the afternoon.

“Thought I’d find you here.”

Ianto half glanced over his shoulder at the sound of Jack’s voice a few steps behind him. A moment later, a palm slid against his and he tightly grasped the offered hand.

“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to come,” Jack murmured, looking across at the mourners, his hair shifting across his forehead in the strengthening breeze.

“I know,” he replied over the lump in his throat. “And I wasn’t going to. I thought it’d be best to stay away, but she was my sister.”

“I know,” Jack repeated gently, squeezing his hand reassuringly.

He returned his attention to the group standing around the grave. Rhi had quite the turn out for her funeral, probably not surprising since she’d lived into her nineties. Mica and David were there, and Mica’s own daughter stood with a baby on her hip and holding a toddler’s hand. It blew his mind that his niece was now a grandmother in her own right.

And Ianto still didn’t look a day over twenty-seven.

The past years had been hard, as everyone had slipped away one by one. First, it’d been Rhi’s husband, Johnny, only forty-four when he’d had a heart attack. Then surprisingly it’d been Gwen. Perfectly healthy yet had a stroke at fifty-nine leaving her family devastated. Rhys had gone next, though he’d lived on almost twenty years after his wife. And now Rhi; the last of his immediate family had died peacefully in her sleep at the best retirement home money could buy. Mica and David had tried to find out who the mysterious benefactor had been that’d paid their mother’s medical expenses, but it hadn’t been hard to hide his tracks since Ianto Jones had died in 2009 and as far as everyone except Torchwood were concerned, had most definitely stayed that way.

It’d been hard at first, resisting the urge to reconnect with his sister, but as the years had gone by, he and Jack had remained static, while Gwen aged and gradually distanced herself from them. Not really on purpose, he didn’t think. She just got busy with her life and family, and she’d quit Torchwood to leave all those kinds of things behind. She didn’t need him and Jack hanging around; they had become her past in a way he’d never expected to happen. So he was glad in the end that he hadn’t told Rhi the truth, only to have to fake his death or something a few years later when she started noticing he wasn’t getting any older.

The funeral ended and the mourners started moving off in pairs and small group, but Ianto stayed, staring at the spot that now commemorated his sister’s life and trying not to wonder what would become of him. Jack had found a new grey hair a few years back and been ridiculously excited about it. Ianto had celebrated this tiny bit of proof that he was in fact aging somehow, albeit very slowly, and tried not to worry that he now might have the problem Jack once had—eventually, probably in thousands and thousands of years, Jack would die and what the hell would he do if he was still being sustained at the ripe old age of twenty-seven by the nano-tech in his blood? Jack had a theory there was a way to deactivate the nano-tech, but neither of them wanted to risk trying it, in case they couldn’t re-activate it again.

He probably had several millennia to figure it out, so he was trying his best not to worry about it. But since his sister had just been buried today, he figured he could wallow just a little.

“You okay?” Jack released his hand and set it on his shoulder, rubbing a comforting circle.

“This is it, isn’t it? Our eternity. You always said it; the curse of watching everyone around you die.”

Jack shifted to stand in front of him, his other hand coming up to cup his neck. “I’m sorry, Ianto, you know I would never have wished this on you.”

He stared into Jack’s clear blue eyes, his heart filling with warmth. Even after all these years together, it still amazed him how much he loved this man.

“And I would never have wished for you to end up alone again and again, for the rest of forever.” That was the one saving grace in all this. They might have to watch everyone else they cared about die, but at least they’d always have one another. Maybe they wouldn’t always stay together. Maybe in another ten or fifty or one hundred or a thousand years, they’d decide to take a break from one another, but just knowing there was someone else in the universe they could always run back to made all the difference.

“Lucky you saved me from my fate then, isn’t it?” Jack shifted closer, leaning in to press an affectionate kiss to his jaw.

“Yup. Even if it was completely by accident.”

“Hey! It’s not like I asked to become immortal. It just so happened I made such a great impression on the right person, she wanted to save me, but did too good a job at it.”

He gave a quick laugh. “That sounds familiar. Made a great impression on the right person—though I’m sure she was more about saving herself than saving me—and here I am.”

Jack shrugged. “I guess somethings are meant to be.”

He rolled his eyes. “Are you going to get any less corny in the next few decades?”

“Come on, you love my lines!” Jack sent him the grin he always used when he wanted to sway Ianto to his will.

“Check back in another fifty years and we’ll see how I feel about them.”

“Guess I’ll just have to work extra hard to make sure you want to keep me around.” Jack crowded closer, and the next breath he took was nothing but pheromones, making his toes curl. _Cheating_. He always cheated. Him and those bloody pheromones.

By now, however, he knew it was futile to resist, so he leaned in and caught Jack’s mouth in a kiss. As Jack’s tongue slid against his, he moaned, pressing closer. Kissing Jack Harkness _never_ got old. Ianto had no idea how he managed it, but the man could still make him weak in the knees.

Just as he was beginning to come up with places close by they could get away with a quick shag, the ground rumbled beneath their feet, nearly tossing them over. Jack’s wrist-strap made some kind of beeping sound as they pulled apart.

“What the hell was that?” He wasn’t sure if he meant the minor earthquake or the beeping on Jack’s wrist, which happened very rarely and was usually followed by some kind of chaos.

Jack flipped open the cover of his wrist-strap, expression intent with concern. “Something or someone has locked onto my vortex manipulator. And the quake was some kind of massive tectonic shift on a global scale.”

“What could have caused that?” He grabbed onto Jack’s arm as the rumbling happened again, causing some of the headstones in the cemetery to topple over.

“I have no idea,” Jack finally answered. “But whatever it is, it’s bad. End of the world, bad.”

He only just stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “Not again.”

Jack actually grinned. “Come on, we better get back to the—”

A wheezing, whining noise cut Jack off and his eyes widened before he spun around.

“I should have known!” Jack announced, voice landing somewhere between worried and excited.

“Jack, what’s going—” The noise increased and then a blue police box appeared out of nowhere.

The Doctor.

He could feel Jack’s arm tensing beneath his hold and couldn’t work out if Jack wanted to run to the police box or away from it. From the look on Jack’s face, it seemed like he didn’t know either. As far as Ianto was concerned, this meeting was long overdue. He had a few things he wanted to tell the Time Lord, beginning and ending with the fact he’d called Jack _wrong_.

However, when the doors flung open, it wasn’t a man with spiked brown hair and a long coat like he’d been expecting. The long coat was right, but the head that popped out had a mop of blond hair, topped off with blue three-quarter length trousers over sturdy boots and a pair of braces that Jack would have been proud of.

“Boys! There you are. I’ve been looking all over for the two of you.” She stepped out and patted the side of the TARDIS. “Missed the landing a bit the first time. Only overshot by three years. But here we are!”

“Doctor?” Jack stuttered, eyes wide.

“Oh, of course.” She hopped forward a couple of steps and fanned her coat out. “Go on then, get a gander. Quite the trade-in I got on the last model, don’t you think?”

Jack laughed and stepped forward to embrace her. “That’s some regeneration you had!”

She returned his hug infectiously, then ruffled his hair as she stepped back. “It’s been brilliant!”

Leaning sideways, she wiggled her fingers at him. “Hullo! You must be Ianto. Heard a lot about you last time Jack travelled in the TARDIS.”

“You did?” He started forward then let out a startled _oomph_ when she tackle-hugged him with surprising strength. Anything he’d planned to say to the Time Lord—Lady?—had gone out the window. Not only was it not the same Doctor, but she seemed genuinely nice and apparently knew all about him from Jack.

“Oh yeah, never stopped talking about you.” She released him from the hug but then grabbed his face, squishing his cheeks. “I can see why, though. You’re bloody gorgeous, you are.”

“Um, thanks?” he got out in a very unmanly squeak as Jack laughed.

The ground rumbled again and the Doctor let him go, whipping something out of her coat that had to be the sonic screwdriver Jack had told him about.

“Hmm, that’s the blighters now!” she announced as if he and Jack should know what she was talking about. He shot Jack a questioning look, but Jack just shrugged with a grin, as if this was all par for the course with the Doctor.

She walked in a circle, waving the screwdriver around and muttering to herself as it made different whirring and chirping noises.

“Right, that’ll need fixing. Come on, then!” She bounced back toward the TARDIS like a bundle of raw energy.

“Are we going somewhere?” Jack called after her.

She poked her head back out. “Well, you don’t expect me to get rid of the Shalka on my own, do you? Hurry up now, before the global temperature rises any more. Last time the polar caps started melting, I ruined my favourite pair of shoes!”

The Doctor disappeared again before either of them could reply.

“Shalka?” he asked, looking at Jack.

“They’re a snake-like race made of living rock and magma. They breathe volcanic air, prefer high temperatures and tend to go around trying to terra-form planets to suit their own needs.”

“Oh,” he replied, always amazed at the alien information Jack seemed to be able to pull from thin air. “Sounds charming.”

“They’re really not. If that who’s responsible for the earthquakes, then we’re in serious trouble.”

He nodded toward the police box. “The Doctor seems to have a plan.”

Jack sent him a flat look. “The Doctor always seems to have a plan, but very rarely does.”

“So we shouldn’t go with her, then?” Truthfully, his heart was racing at the thought of getting to fly off in the space-time-machine and experience first-hand some of the stories Jack had told him.

Jack cast a speculative look over the ship and then turned to him with a serious gleam in his gaze. “I don’t know. Should we?”

He reached down and took Jack’s hand. With Rhi gone, there was very little tying him to this planet any longer. “We definitely should.”

Jack’s resulting grin made Ianto’s heart skip a beat.

“Oh, Ianto, you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.” Jack tugged him toward the police box, a spring in his step that hadn’t been there before.

“Is it too late to change my mind?” he teased as Jack pulled him through the door.

Jack had described the TARDIS to him, but actually seeing it was breath-stealing. He could _feel_ the ship living and breathing around him. It was comforting and frightening and awe-inspiring all in the same instance.

Jack had moved behind him and settled his hands on Ianto’s hips. Jack leaned in and brushed his lips against his ear. “Still want to change your mind?”

He wordlessly shook his head, knowing he probably looked like a gaping twat, but not caring in the least.

“Hold onto something, boys!” The Doctor announced. She leaned sideways around the console. “I mean something else besides each other.”

Before either of them could move, she threw a lever and the TARDIS exploded into motion. Jack laughed as they both lurched sideways, but he managed to secure them against the railing.

In all the commotion, somehow Jack found his mouth, kissing him deep and adoringly.

“So, Ianto Jones,” Jack drawled when he pulled back, still holding him trapped against the railing. “How do you feel about all of time and space, as well as forever?”

“You know I’d follow you anywhere,” he murmured in return.

Whatever Jack had thought he was going to say, clearly that wasn’t it. Surprise crossed his face, before a smile edged over his lips, nothing but love and warmth in his eyes as he stared at him.

“What did I do to deserve you?” Jack whispered with a hint of wonder in his voice.

“Best not to ask that question,” he teased in return.

Jack laughed and this time pulled him into a hug. “No, I guess I better not.”

The TARDIS wound down, become still and silent.

“Here we are then!” The Doctor announced. “Come on, boys, work to do!”

She practically skipped past them and disappeared out the door.

Ianto caught Jack with an unimpressed look. “Do you think that _boys_ thing is going to stick?”

“I think it already has.” Jack grinned, not seeming the least bit bothered as he shifted back and held out an arm. “Eternity is expecting us, Mr. Jones.”

“Well, go on.” He slipped his arm through Jack’s, ready for anything. “Best not keep them waiting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to say an extra thanks for how enthusiastic everyone was over this story! It ended up being a bit longer than I initially thought it would be and hope you all enjoyed how I finished it... bonus points for any super-fans who noticed the last line Ianto said in this fic also happened to be the first line he said in the TV series :)


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